Naruto's Grudge
by Scrael
Summary: My take on the classic "What if Naruto chose a different technique from the Forbidden Scroll?" Story. AU.


Chapter 1

I sat in the clearing with my back to a tree, looking down at the old, tattered parchment that made up the Forbidden Scroll. I only had a few hours before Mizuki or Iruka came, so I had to make it count. The first technique on the scroll, the Shadow Clone no Jutsu, I skipped on principle.

I have always been terrible at clones, and I wasn't prepared to waste a few hours on the off chance that this technique was any different. Looking to the next jutsu, I frowned in irritation. Great Clone Explosion, seriously, what the fuck. Every move in this stupid scroll had better not have to do with clones.

The next technique was some sort of... demon sealing jutsu? Worthless again. Even if I could learn it in time to pass, where was I supposed to get a demon to seal to prove it? Growing more and more frustrated, I scanned the scroll faster, until I found something that looked interesting and useful.

Summoning Technique: Earth Grudge Fear. Well... I wasn't certain what "Earth Grudge Fear" was supposed to be, but everyone knew that summoning techniques were some of the hardest to obtain. I had never heard of a summon that didn't benefit the summoner greatly.

I glanced at the description of the technique, apparantly it summoned a "parasite" which "assimilated" with the "host" if sufficient chakra was used. I wasn't entirely sure what that meant, but the jutsu itself seemed easy enough to use.

The instructors at the Academy had always told me I had more chakra than most other kids my age, so surely that wouldn't be an issue. Fuck it, I'll give it a shot. I glanced over the required hand seals one last time, then shrugged and began to focus my chakra.

It moved through my body a bit sluggishly, and I grit my teeth in concentration as I felt more and more of it rush to my hands. I quickly bit my thumb, ran through the hand seals, and slammed my palm into the ground.

Chakra flooded out of me in a visible wave, seals forming on the ground as it passed. I felt a surge of elation as it appeared to work, which quickly turned to apprehension and fear as I felt more and more chakra get pulled out of my body.

I tried to lift my hand off the ground, to do anything, but I couldn't fight the technique. My vision began to dim as my chakra ran low, and just when I thought I was going to kick the bucket the technique abruptly stopped.

I flopped to the ground and gasped for breath, perhaps that hadn't been the smartest thing to attempt. But wasn't it supposed to actually do something? As I finally caught his breath I looked around the small clearing, stopping when I saw a small writhing mass of... something in the center.

Curiosity overcame common sense, and I walked up to it. It looked like a clump of... black hair, or thread and it was twisting and turning seemingly of its own accord. I bent down to peer at it, probably not my brightest move, and it seemed to tense up for a moment, then launched for my face.

Holy fucking shit! I had enough time to take a single step back before it hit me, and the most painful experience of my admittedly young life began. I had an excellent view of what I could now definitely call threads, they were to coarse to be hair, as they covered my face and then began to enter my body through my mouth, nose and ears.

Trust me, it was every bit as painful as it sounds. I don't think I could even scream, I just kind of lay there and spasmed as the threads worked their way through my body, until I finally drifted into lovely unconsciousness.

I awoke to a frantic Iruka shaking me urgently. "Naruto! Are you alright?" I looked around in confusion, hadn't I been doing something interesting? "What possessed you to steal the Forbidden Scroll!?" Oh. Right.

I gave Iruka my biggest grin. "Ha! I learned one of the techniques from the scroll, now you have to pass me!" I don't think I have ever seen him look as confused as he was then. "What the hell are you talking about Naruto, who told you that?"

My grin slowly faded as I began to feign ignorance. Plausible deniablity was truly a wonderful thing. "M-Mizuki-sensei told me it was a secret graduation test.." As I spoke I became aware of a presence in my head, which began to speak.

"**Assimilation complete. Host chakra levels at 8%, regenerating at a rate of 1% every 7 minutes. Current available chakra affinities: Wind. Recommendation: Obtain secondary chakra source from available assets."**

I blinked in confusion. What the hell was a secondary chakra source? I'm pretty sure ninjas only have one chakra source. Was it referring to the Kyuubi? I looked back up to Iruka just in time to notice him charge into me, knocking us both out of the way of a flurry of kunai.

"Ah! What the fuck is going on?" I shouted as I hit the ground. Iruka glared up at the trees that the kunai had come from, absently pulling one the of the more accurate ones from his calf. "Mizuki is trying to steal the Forbidden Scroll Naruto! You can't let him have it!"

I glanced up at Mizuki, who looked like he was about to say something. At the same time, I felt foreign information begin to stream into my head.

**"Chakra sources available: Demonic Entity, Host knowledge indicates a 98% chance of being positively identified as the Kyuubi no Kitsune. Scans indicate host body is unable to process a significant a amount of youkai at this time.**

**Second Option: Humanoid A, identified by Host as Iruka. Chakra Affinity: Fire. Secondary source from this subject would restore Host reserves to 16%.**

**Third Option: Humanoid B, identified by Host as Mizuki. Chakra Affinity: Water. Secondary source from this subject would restore Host reserves to 18%."**

Well, that was interesting. I turned to Iruka, "Hey, Iruka-sensei, I didn't know you had a fire affinity." He shot me a strange look, then turned back to Mizuki quickly. "This.. This isn't really the time for that Naruto." Oops, I had interrupted Mizuki.

"Sorry about that Mizuki-sensei! What were you saying?" I think I embarrassed him, his face was turning a strange red color. "Never mind you little shit, just die! He screamed, and whipped his arm forward.

Iruka tackled me again, which was honestly getting pretty annoying, and this time a bunch of blood dripped out of his mouth onto me. Gross. I was about to let him know what I thought about that, when he kind of slumped off me, and I saw the giant pointy thing sticking out of his back.

I stared for a second, honestly confused. I had always though that Iruka hated me, just like everyone else in the village, but he had just shielded me with his own body. "Naruto.. run! You can't let him.. take the scroll," Iruka gasped out. Ah, that made more sense. He was protecting the scroll.

Still, regardless of his intentions, he had honestly tried to protect me. **"Subject Mizuki selected for extraction. Proceed?"** Errr. Sure. Mizuki was monologuing again, "-emon spawn, I'll cut you into tiny pi-", and he seemed rather suprised when a huge flood of threads erupted out of my body and slammed into him.

Then again, it startled me a little too. He made this weird keening sound, then my threads burst out his chest in a rather impressive display of gore. The threads made their way back to me, and appeared to have brought Mizuki's heart with them.

Well... that's.. nice. It actually reminded me of a pet cat I had once who used to bring me dead birds. I was decidedly less pleased when my skin opened up and the heart was deposited somewhere inside me, but eh, I wasn't gonna sweat the small stuff.

"**Secondary chakra source obtained. Host reserves restored to 20%. Chakra Affinities available: Wind, Water. Chakra level no longer critical, removing function restrictions."**

"Naruto... what the hell just happened?" Iruka looked a little nervous at the brutal killing of his fellow chunin, and I wasn't really sure what to tell him. "Well.. um. I told you I learned a technique from the scroll."

Iruka just rubbed his forehead with one hand. "Whatever... let's just wait for the ANBU to show up." I was more than happy to follow that suggestion, as that would give me some time to figure out exactly what these threads were doing.

I tried to think my questions as loudly as possible. **"That is unnecessary. I am a product of Project Grudge, more commonly known as the kinjutsu Earth Grudge Fear. I was developed in Takigakure as an anti-bloodline weapon in an attempt to give them an edge in the First Shinobi War."**

It must not have worked too well if I had never heard of it before. **"That is correct. Takigakure was unable to find a shinobi that could survive the assimilation process. It is likely you only survived the process due to the regenerative capabilites granted by the demon sealed within you."**

Ah, that made sense. Honestly I had known about the Kyuubi for years, it was hard to ignore the fact that you healed wounds overnight that would put most shinobi in the hospital for a week. At first I had suspect a bloodline, but it only took one trip to the library to research the Uzamaki clan to remove that suspicion.

It really wasn't difficult to put 2 + 2 together. Whispers of "demon brat" and "fox brat" along with heated glares met me anywhere I went in Konoha, and I had that rather suspicious seal that appeared on my stomach anytime I channeled chakra.

"**Subject Iruka appears to have passed out. Based on fluctuating vital signs, he will expire soon." **Gah! No doubt I would get the blame for it if he died. I quickly went over to him and bandaged his wounds as well as I could, making sure not to pull any of the pointy things out of him.

That seemed to stabilize him long enough for the ANBU to get here, and they quickly moved him to the hospital. I was taken to the Hokage, so I could explain to him exactly why he had one chunin in the hospital and one whose ribs decided to climb their way out of his chest.

Luckily the old man has always had a soft spot for me, and he accepted my explanation of what had happened with just a sigh and a shake of his head. He asked me a lot of questions about what exactly the Earth Grudge Fear did, and I answered off of my limited knowledge.

Then I asked some pointed questions about the Kyuubi, to which he spouted out a bunch of bullshit about how the Fourth Hokage had wanted me to be seen as a hero to the villagers. After that I unleashed my best pout, and 20 minutes later I was eating the old man out of his pocket money at Ichiraku's.

Honestly, the old man was probably the only reason I was still in the village. I'm not sure why they seemed to think being shown nothing but hatred would inspire anything remotely close to loyalty for this dump, but the Hokage had always treated me like family. I would at least wait for him to die before I left this shit-hole.

After we had finished our meal, he walked me back to my apartment, and told me to get some sleep while he tried to figure out exactly where he was going to place me in the ninja ranks.


End file.
